UAE flights head to airstrip that UN suspects supplies arms to Sudan rebels

Since civil war erupted in Sudan last year, dozens of cargo planes from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have landed at a small airstrip in Chad that some UN experts and diplomats suspect is being used to funnel arms across the border into the conflict, flight data and satellite images show.

At least 86 flights from the UAE have headed for an airstrip at Amdjarass in eastern Chad since the war began in April 2023, three-quarters of them operated by carriers accused by the UN of ferrying Emirati weapons to a warlord in Libya, according to the flight data and corporate documents reviewed by Reuters.

The UAE, a key Western ally in the Middle East, says it has been sending aid for Sudan via Chad, not arms.

The country rejected a report by a UN panel of experts in January that cited "credible" allegations the UAE was providing military supplies via the Chad airstrip to Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group fighting the Sudanese army in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.

Previously unreported video footage reviewed by Reuters from Amdjarass filmed this year, showing two pallets on the tarmac stacked with khaki crates, some of them labelled with the UAE flag.

Reuters is withholding the exact date and origin of the footage due to the risk of reprisals.

Three weapons experts, two of whom have worked as UN investigators, said the crates appeared unlikely to be carrying humanitarian aid, which is often packaged in cardboard boxes wrapped in plastic and stacked high on pallets due to its light weight. The crates in the video appear to be metal and are stacked low on the pallets.

The contents were "highly probably ammunition or weapons, based on the design and colour of boxes," according to one of the experts, who has worked as a UN weapons inspector and asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information. The long and thin proportions of cases on the right-hand pallet indicate they likely contain weapons, he added.

Reuters was unable to verify independently the crates' contents. It is withholding the exact date of filming to protect the source.

In a statement sent to Reuters, the UAE government said it had sent 159 relief flights with more than 10,000 tonnes of food and medical aid, partly to supply a field hospital it has established in Amdjarass.

"We firmly reject the baseless and unfounded claims regarding the provision of arms and military equipment to any warring party since the beginning of the conflict," the statement said.

Roll back Islamist groups

Since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, the oil-rich Gulf state has intervened in conflicts from Yemen to Libya, partly to roll back Islamist groups.  The UAE sees such groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, as a threat to domestic stability.

Islamists associated with the rule of ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir have long held influence within Sudan's army.

Brigadier General Omar Hamdan, a senior RSF official, denied the group received any outside support. It used weapons and ammunition produced at factories in Sudan, he told reporters in Nairobi on November 18, without identifying the factories. The RSF did not respond to requests for further comment for this story.

Brigadier General Nabil Abdullah, a spokesperson for the Sudanese army, said the supply of Emirati arms to the RSF was a "tangible fact".

"The flow of weapons and equipment from the UAE in this way to the rebel Rapid Support Militia has not stopped since the outbreak of this war," Nabil said.

Fighting between Sudan's army and the RSF began in mid-April 2023 as the two factions, which had jointly seized full power in a coup two years earlier, vied to protect their interests ahead of a planned transition towards civilian rule.

The RSF, which has its roots in the Janjaweed militias used by the government in its brutal suppression of an insurgency in Darfur two decades ago, stormed through most of the capital, Khartoum, before consolidating its grip on most of the western region of Darfur, which borders Chad, and advancing across the south.

"Logistics win wars, and the UAE has used this plane network to consistently facilitate weapons to the RSF," said Justin Lynch, lead analyst at the Sudan Conflict Observatory monitoring platform, who reviewed Reuters' flight analysis.

Altered balance of power

"UAE-supplied weapons to the RSF have altered the balance of power in Sudan's conflict, prolonged the war and increased civilian casualties."

The UAE has said its work in Amdjarass is purely humanitarian including setting up a field hospital there where the Emirates Red Crescent has treated more than 18,000 Sudanese refugees.

Tommaso Della Longa, the spokesperson for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told Reuters the IFRC has not been involved in the operations in Amdjarass and was not aware of the hospital until it was publicised by Emirati officials. He said that two IFRC fact-finding missions to Chad to better understand the situation were unable to access the field hospital due to the security situation.

William Spindler, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said the UN refugee agency has not referred any refugees to the hospital.

A member of the Chadian security forces who had been deployed to Amdjarass this year described witnessing planes arriving with crates that looked like the ones his units used to transport weapons. The source, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, said his unit was involved in escorting the crates to the border with Sudan, where they were handed over to RSF fighters.

Chadian authorities did not respond to a request for comment about the flights and operations at Amdjarass. The Sudanese army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Three aid workers with direct knowledge of the situation in eastern Chad, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said aid deliveries were nowhere near the volume the UAE says it has sent.

Dropped denials

At meetings with senior US officials in Washington this fall, UAE delegates dropped their denials of providing backing to the RSF after they were shown intelligence Washington had collected, one source with direct knowledge of the meetings said.

A spokesperson for the US State Department said: "We are engaged in senior-level dialogue with partners in the region to underscore the perils associated with supporting the belligerents, which will prolong the conflict." He declined further comment on the meetings.

The New York Times has previously reported that the UAE has used humanitarian aid as a cover to ship weapons, ammunition and drones to the RSF through the Amdjarass airstrip, citing satellite imagery and current and former officials from the United States, Europe and African countries.

In total, Reuters identified 170 flights, using satellite imagery from Planet, Maxar and BlackSky, by planes that are based in the UAE that headed on the route for Amdjarass since the start of the war.

Of those, Reuters was able to verify that at least 86 originated in UAE airports, including Al Ain, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah.  Reuters was unable to confirm the point of origin of the other flights due to gaps in flight tracking.

The Reuters review of the 170 flights headed for eastern Chad found that around half were operated by four airlines that a UN panel of experts accused of channelling UAE military support to Libyan general Khalifa Haftar in 2019-2020, according to the flight tracking data.

They are ZetAvia and FlySky Airlines LLC, both based in Ukraine, and FlySky Kyrgyz and Sapsan Airlines, based in Kyrgyzstan.

The involvement of these four airlines has not been previously reported. Reuters was unable to establish what the planes were carrying.

Another airline involved in the Chad airlift, Kyrgyzstan-based New Way Cargo, was identified as supplying the RSF via Chad with backing from the United Arab Emirates, according to a report in October from the Sudan Conflict Observatory, which is funded by the US State Department.

The airlines and a spokesman for Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, did not respond to requests for comment.

Registered in Kyrgyzstan

After the UN panel's findings in 2021, many of the planes were deregistered by Ukrainian and Kazakh authorities and registered in Kyrgyzstan.

ZetAvia and Sapsan did not comment on the panel's findings. FlySky Airlines told the panel that the cargo it transported "does not constitute military cargo subject to United Nations Security Council sanctions".

According to Reuters analysis of data from FlightRadar24, many of the 170 flights briefly stopped in Kenya at airports in Nairobi and Mombasa but have also stopped in Uganda's Entebbe airport, Kigali in Rwanda, and Bosaso in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region.

In Somaliland, a breakaway Somali province, a senior official told Reuters that flights from the UAE stopping off at Berbera had been carrying military equipment, according to information including the landing requests sent to airport authorities. The official asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the information and Reuters was unable to review the landing requests or confirm the information independently.

The UAE has cultivated ties with Somaliland, beginning construction in 2017 of a military base in Berbera that was later converted into a military airport, according to six local officials and diplomats.

Kenya's Airport Authority and Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the airport authorities in Rwanda, Uganda, Puntland and Somaliland did not respond to requests for comment.

Nine officials in the United States, Britain and the African Union told Reuters they were closely monitoring military support flowing to the RSF from the UAE through Chad, though they have not made any public accusations.

The African Union did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the UK foreign office said it continues to pursue all diplomatic avenues to end the violence.